Left-right coding in children: Implications for adult performance

Abstract

Recent work with adults suggests that inferior performance on left-right (relative to up-down) tasks is not a perceptual difficulty but is tied to the use of spatial words. This interpretation rests on the assumption that preschool children have difficulty distinguishing between objects turned left or right and that spatial words are acquired at the time that children experience left-right confusion. However, this assumption is unwarranted in the light of recent work showing that 3-year-old children make left-right discriminations when stimuli are presented individually. This study pursues the problem further by asking whether left-right discriminations can be made in the dark, without any perceptual supports. Preschool children solved left-right (and up-down) problems in a few trials, demonstrating their ability to make left-right discriminations based solely on an egocentric frame of reference. © 1982, The psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.